Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Follow Finely Chopped by Email

The power of ideas. French toast with feta

Did the ‘styling’ for the picture on our floor before heading off to our bistro table to eat. Love the fact that we have so many wooden textures to experiment for the pictures I take at home these days. Some of the collective inspiration for the composition comes from pictures I see on Insta

The best mornings are when you wake up bursting with ideas and today was one.

Such a blessed contrast from the time when I decided to leave my market research agency days behind to try being a food writer and would wake up wondering what to do with my day. I could talk about the gratitude at being able to turn ‘poison into medicine’ as the Buddhist concept goes, but as my yoga teacher says, ‘focus on the present moment’.

While most of the ideas this morning were to do with work and were based on 5 amazing coversations/ interactions that I had yesterday, one was to do with my breakfast, and I am so happy with how it turned out in practise.

Savoury French toast, or a glammed up deem pauruti/ anda bread, made in olive oil, topped with toasted walnuts, a sprinkling of dukkah, some finely chopped green chillies (I didn’t eat it all) & the excellent feta sent to me by Dhvani Desai of Casa Del cheese.

How do one make it?

-Beat eggs, add a touch of salt & dukkah or add crushed black pepper to it. Remember, feta is salty too so skimp on the salt

- Dunk the bread in it, turn the bread around so that the egg soaks in

- Heat oil in a flat pan. Slide in bread. Gently turn bread around after 30 sec. Another 30 sec and you are done

- Top it with a mix of toasted walnuts (I toasted them on a dry pan) & feta and chillies if you can handle them and some dukkah. I added the chilli for the burst of green.

- Pray to have friends who give you pretty plates like Sue & Nathan who gave me this slate plate when we met in London & benevolent cheesemakers like Dhvani, who makes the cheese in Mumbai itself, who give you such excellent cheese to experiment with. Loved the soft texture and freshness and intensity of flavours of the feta.

My mom in law had some and liked it as did the missus who normally never touches French toast, savoury or sweet. The strawberries are courtesy my masi in law. The coffee is Davidoff instant.

The breakfast, as you will know if you have been around here for a while, is rooted in memory. My mother used to make savoury French toast for my from when I was a kid and still does when we meet. It is my favourite breakfast to make for myself and I love experimenting with it.

Off to work now. Ta!

Can’t say that I am a fan of excessive use of black and sepulchral backgrounds for food shots. The style is called Gothic I think. Thought I will play around with one here. Looks cool I think for a one off. What say?

PS Sharing the deets of Casa Del Cheese as I found the feta very interesting and impressive. This is in Mumbai. If in Delhi, try out the Tijara Organic cheese. I had an excellent goat cheese from them when I met them at the Tasting India Symposium recently. Chuffed to see such excellent cheeses being made in India. I know that Prateek Sadhu of the Masque restaurant here uses some excellent cheeses from Pondicherry and Dhvani tells me that she supplies to them too.

Follow me on Twitter

Follow me on Instagram

Contact Form

Translate

Search This Blog

Popular Posts

The start of a new chapter and of a more focused and conscious diet
If you have followed my social media feed, no pun intended, for the past few weeks, then you would have noticed my use of the hashtag #LittleJackHornerMeals.
I have referred to it earlier too here. As you might know, this is a hashtag that I have created to go with the sort of food that I try to eat these days. My diet has seen a bit of an overhaul of late. This happened after I did my routine medical check ups recently after a (very, very) long interval and the results of which made my doctors tell me that I need to work on countering some of the scores that have become high, through a mix of medication, exercise and change in dietary habits. I was also advised to try to lose weight to help rein these in as well as to help counter the chronic backache that I suffer from.
I am not going to get into the details of what I have been advised to do and why. There's a reason for that. The diet one needs to follow is…